Iguanas cruise the Caribbean

A COLONY of iguanas has travelled about 300 kilometres by raft across the ocean to a Caribbean island.

Scientists assumed that some land animals float huge distances across oceans, but this had never been seen. Now Ellen Censky at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pennsylvania reports that 15 green iguanas (Iguana iguana) rafted on a mat of trees and earth to Anguilla, probably from Guadeloupe, following Hurricane Luis in 1995 (Nature, vol 395, p 556).

"My guess is that a hillside washed down and these iguanas came with it," says Censky. The iguanas arrived on Anguilla alive, and one healthy female was sighted there 29 months later.

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